Ouch! My buddy Chuck — our sons are in Boy Scouts together — was on his way to a local car show in Escondido, California (a suburb of San Diego) in his classic Olds 442. He was sitting at a light when he suddenly found himself in the air. Apparently the Toyota never even slowed down. Fortunately her insurance will cover it, but still – hang up and drive folks!

Pre-cell-phone days – I was driving along in downtown Atlanta one afternoon where some construction was going on (isn’t it always?) and the right lane was blocked up ahead by a dump truck waiting on a load of debris. I watched in complete fascination as a lady ahead of me in a Toyota drove right into the back of the truck without even slowing down (thankfully she was only doing about 35-40 MPH). Sheesh.

Recently, just north of Turner field (Atlanta Braves) I came upon a 90’s Camaro that had an 80’s Accord perched perfectly upon its’ roof! Apparently the Camaro did a last minute heavy brake/nose dive and submarined underneath the Accord! 🙂

I think the Corolla didn’t like it’s new red color and was attracted by my friend’s Riviera which was close to it’s original color seen on the hood (or it’s just the hood that was replaced with a gold one?!).

At least, my Camry isn’t gold like that… Not much better though! I can’t complain about it either but it’s probably the closest thing to driving an appliance. But since I have a strong interest in appliances (I collect them!), that’s OK I guess!

That damage to the Toyota is similar to the damage that was sustained by a 1992 Cavalier than mistakenly decided to slam into the back of my 1966 Cadillac, the hood wasn’t as crumpled, but it was pretty severe damage. The Cadillac was unfazed, other than the shove forward from the Cavalier.

I remember my grandfather getting rear ended in his 72 Skylark 350 by a college student in her brand new Nissan Pulsar NX, the Pulsar was pretty badly damaged in the front, I still remember the pop-up headlights looking cross-eyed at the ground, the Skylark had a broken rear taillight and the bumper was slightly pushed in more on the left than on the right.

Cross-eyed car!
That happened to me years ago…
A guy who was driving a ’90 Grand Am without insurance had a brake line failure and ended crashing into my 1967 Riviera’s front. That happened at night so the headlights were down.

My insurance paid (and bought some spare parts from my own parts car to have my car fixed at the local Buick dealership) but they claimed the total amount to the uninsured driver…

And for those who are wondering, the X frame didn’t bend in this accident like it did on the 1959 Chevy that the IIHS crashed into another Chevy a few years ago. And no one was hurt either (But it wasn’t a high speed impact!).

BigOldChryslers

Posted November 6, 2014 at 1:37 PM

> But it wasn’t a high speed impact!

Bingo! New cars are safer than old cars in high speed collisions because they are designed to deform to absorb the impact energy. Old cars fare better in low-speed collisions because they do NOT deform….

The reason the Riviera kept it until 1970 is because it and the Toronado were their own largely unique E-Body, and they both kept their same underpinnings and body shell right through 1970. The Toro had a perimeter frame, though.

Years ago I was rear-ended hard by a brand new ’89 Cavalier while driving my trusty, rusty old ’77 Silverado. My damage consisted of having all of the bumper bolts sheared off and having my bumper fall to the pavement. The engine was crushed against the firewall of the Cavalier…

One could see this as a metaphor what Asian industry has done to American industry. Of course it is not that simple. American companies can be blamed for their own downfall by short sighted outsourcing and poor management. The American consumer shares some of the blame too, by demanding ever cheaper products without regard to the related social and environmental costs

The American consumer shares some of the blame too, by demanding ever cheaper products without regard to the related social and environmental costs

It’s a well established fact that new cars last much longer than ones in decades past. Of course some of the old cars have been preserved and pampered, but the simple truth is new cars are drastically more reliable, long-lived, more efficient and have a much lower environmental footprint.

Cars that rusted out in 3-7 years and got 9-14 mpg weren’t exactly cheap in terms of their social or environmental costs.

heh. Yeah I guess shipping over all those Japanese cars across the Pacific in the period this Olds was built was super friendly to the environment, and those cars were super rust resistant when they hit the streets too!

I’m not separating Japanese cars form American cars in my comment. I was referring to all cars in general. But there’s no doubt that the rise of the Japanese cars was fueled by greater reliability on their part (generally speaking) and less reliability on the part of American cars at the time (generally speaking). That’s a well established fact, and one I have zero desire or time to re-hash.

The fuel required to ship each Japanese car back then, compared to the fuel they saved compared to a big American car was undoubtedly very little, and recouped quickly.

Anyway, Don’s comment was about how we got here. And I disagreed with him about the outcome. It was about the generalities of modern cars being more long-lived and efficient.Your comment about 1968 is essentially irrelevant in terms of the eventual outcome.

Canucknucklehead

Posted November 6, 2014 at 1:34 PM

When I was a kid, I used to hear all the time how much better 50’s cars were than 70’s cars…….

Cars are tremendously better than they were even a decade ago and that goes for all cars.

BigOldChryslers

Posted November 6, 2014 at 1:46 PM

But 50’s cars WERE better than 70’s cars, except possibly the Forward Look Mopars until they got the bugs worked out of them. 🙂

DaveWales

Posted November 7, 2014 at 11:40 AM

My dad would tell me how greatly cars had improved from the 40s when 50k was an exceptional life span to the 60s when 100k got to be almost doable. I’m not a complete codger but I remember as a teen that it was an event when your car hit 100k miles, now we feel cheated if we don’t get over 150k.

I have little tolerance for the “they don’t build them like they used to” line. Thank god they don’t. The examples of houses, cars, appliances, whatever we now see from the “good old days” are the survivor’s that practically by definition were better put together and/or better maintained then average or why are we not now drowning in the bazillion cars GM, Ford, etc cranked out from say ’48-’85

Nah, I am thinking that the Camry will rise again. It looks like it needs a new hood, fenders and possibly a grill and lights. There should not be any frame damage to it and Toyotas seem to have high book value (even old ones) so I would nto be surprised if it rises again.

The 442 probably needs a new gas tank. I am not sure how the 442 was set up those years but if it is like our 1972 Cutlass S then the gas tank hung down sightly below the bumper.

Like the proverbial knight, it was a bit more than a flesh wound. You can’t see it in these photos, but the 442 was pushed into the car in front (probably why it lifted up in the back), so there is damage there as well. But it is being fixed.

Adding another “that happened to me” story. I was rear-ended in my Scout in traffic on I-95 outside of Baltimore. Somebody two cars behind didn’t look up in time and hit the guy stopped behind me, who then french-kissed my trailer hitch. Both their cars (a Hyundai and a Subaru, in that order) were towed away; I drove off after being the only one there with the presence of mind to take pictures, copy license plate numbers, and get cards from the other two.

I was just thinking about this sort of thing on my way home from work today. When the guy in front of me slowed down rather suddenly, I said to myself, “Forget about airbags and ABS. My favorite bit of safety equipment is the Center High Mounted Stop Light.” It’s the only light that’s up that high, and the only light that’s in the center. Even the most inattentive drivers notice them (most of the time). Of course, a CHMSL would looks seriously out of place on a classic muscle car like that 4-4-2. One good thing about this accident is that the lady was driving something with an aerodynamic shovel nose. I don’t want to think about what would have happened to the old Olds if she had been driving something with a flat face, like a truck-based supersized SUV.

There was an auto shop teacher at my high school with a ford torino elite back in the 90s who was rear ended by a brand new buick, it was all smashed and steam was coming out of the radiator, while his car got a bent license plate.

No freedom of speech allowed, you can only comment and say the Camry driver did an honor and that Camrys are the only cars people should drive because they’re safe and don’t promote free thinking or doing things yourself.

You’re right; CC is not the sidewalk, and free speech is not guaranteed here. This is a moderated forum, and comments that stereotype and berate all drivers of certain cars are not welcome. Those are prejudiced and inflammatory comments; go out on the sidewalk and speak them there if you must.

FWIW, there are plenty of Camry drivers that read CC, and don’t meet your absurd stereotypical and derogatory definition of them. So get off your anti-Camry/Toyota jihad, and your comments may be welcome here again.

It could have been so mcu worse , cars can be replaced not to Humans .

Decades ago my ex Wife was driving our 1968 Malibu 700 four door ex Cop Car , waiting for a red light when a new Datsun barreled into the back of it ~ Malibu’s are cheap unibody GM things (I love ’em but the facts are facts) so I anticipated it’s be junk when I got home ~ instead the right rear taillight was broken , the fender cap had chipped the paint and there were horizontal scratches in the bumper’s chrome where the Datsun went under .

The Datsun was scrapped , I put in a $150 claim to repair the damage , they declined and told me to come to their adjustment center in Burbank where the did an estimate and cut me a $350.00 check on a car I’d paid $150 for , the ex was too tight fisted to get the bumper re chromed so i just got a $5 Pick-A-Part taillight lens and it soldiered on for many more years doing excellent yeoman duty .

Clearly new cars are better in most ways but they do not satisfy those of us who grew up driving those old nails .